Fox T2 not connected to internet - any solution to "stuck in delete mode" problem?

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meta4ical

New Member
Apparently the customised firmware can solve the Fox T2 "stuck in delete mode" problem, but I've got lost trying to find my way through the things written about it ... can this be done without internet connection? How?

My only connection to the internet is through my phone and its WiFi hotspot, no cable connection, so my Fox T2 isn't internet-connected. But I'm stuck in that "delete mode" loop, so I can't do anything. And, on top of that, it has disabled the Data Storage menu so I can't even reformat the hard-drive - but I'd like to avoid reformatting anyway because the disk has some vital recordings I don't want to lose.

What can I do? I haven't been able to find anything describing how to get out of this situation.
 
The HDR-FOX does not need to be connected to the Internet as such, but you will need to connect it to your home network or at the very least point-to-point with a "computer" of some sort - even if that is a tablet or a phone.

You will also need to download the custom firmware to a UPD (USB stick), you could perhaps get a friend to do that for you, but it is hit and miss whether any particular UPD will work (it is critical it doesn't take too long to start up, new UPDs generally are too slow whereas UPDs from the 2010s generally work).

In short, you're in rather a pickle.
 
When you say "connect point-to-point" do you mean with an ethernet (cabled) connection? Or is some other kind of connection available/possible?
 
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Probably a WiFi dongle is a bit ambitious before the CF has been installed.

You can get a reasonably cheap (<£10) USB-powered WiFi-Ethernet gadget that could be connected to your Fox T2 (its Ethernet and USB ports), and that you could use later once you've got it working. Initially, you'd have to find a way of pairing its WiFi with your phone: it might have some sort of automatic setup (eg WPS), or it might have default settings that allow you to connect to its WiFi from your phone to set up the WLAN that you actually want it to use, ie your phone hotspot.

It might also be possible to use a scrap home [modem/]router by setting it to factory defaults and connecting to it from your phone as above.

Either way you'd also need a spare Ethernet cable.
 
It would be fairly straightforward to use a WiFi USB dongle on the HDR-FOX to connect through to the phone hot-spot (I have used that as a means to manage a HDR-FOX in a situation without a home network), if CF were already installed. Unfortunately, without the CF pre-installed and appropriately configured, particularly with the HDD probably gone read-only, in my opinion somebody without the relevant experience is going to struggle (and it won't be easy even with experience).

meta4ical said:
I haven't been able to find anything describing how to get out of this situation.
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There is information on the forum how to deal with the delete loop, and information about setting up a hot-spot connection. However, configuring the latter won't be easy given the former. You might stand a chance if you were to borrow a laptop from somewhere and use a cable connection from the HDR-FOX to the laptop, in which case we can guide you through it, but you will still need to "get lucky" with a suitable UPD.

Please see your personal messaging.
 
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Black Hole said:
The HDR-FOX does not need to be connected to the Internet as such, but you will need to connect it to your home network or at the very least point-to-point with a "computer" of some sort - even if that is a tablet or a phone.

You will also need to download the custom firmware to a UPD (USB stick), you could perhaps get a friend to do that for you, but it is hit and miss whether any particular UPD will work (it is critical it doesn't take too long to start up, new UPDs generally are too slow whereas UPDs from the 2010s generally work).

In short, you're in rather a pickle.
Click to expand...

I'm planning (when I get a chance) to connect a WiFi range-extender to my mobile hotspot and provide an 802.11 cable internet connection from it to my Fox T2. I haven't got it working yet, but it's only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, I've replaced the HDD with a new one (decided to try a little 512Mb solid-state job - it works quite nicely!) so my PVR is functioning again.

What remains is the problem of getting the files off the old HDD.

I'm wondering if I can put the HDD that had the "delete loop" problem in one of those enclosures (SATA to USB) and connect it as an external USB ext3 disk, then save the files by copying them to another external ext3 dish and reformat the drive that has the problem.

Do you think that would work?.... Or does the "delete loop" problem persist even when it's connected as an external ext3 USB disk? Or is this "unknown territory"?
 
/df said:
I think it's just the presence of a single flag file on the registered recording disk that needs to be deleted
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It can also be that the volume has gone read-only. Either way, you do not need networking if you just fit a new HDD. There is a fair chance that you can then simply fit the old HDD as a USB drive and play/copy the old recordings.

meta4ical said:
Meanwhile, I've replaced the HDD with a new one (decided to try a little 512Mb solid-state job - it works quite nicely!) so my PVR is functioning again.
Click to expand...
512MB isn't going to go very far, "512Mb" even less so ("B" = Bytes, "b" = bits)! I'm not sure something that small will even format (IIRC just the TSR buffer needs 2GB on a 10GB partition). If it is meant as a stop-gap, see below. Do you mean 512GB??

See Things Every... (click) section 12.

meta4ical said:
I'm planning (when I get a chance) to connect a WiFi range-extender to my mobile hotspot and provide an 802.11 cable internet connection from it to my Fox T2. I haven't got it working yet, but it's only a matter of time.
Click to expand...
That will mean you could use CF to fix the problem, if CF were installed. Installing CF in the first place is still dependent on downloading the install file to a UPD, and hoping that the UPD works for firmware updating. Until you have installed the CF, networking is of secondary importance.

Once you have CF installed, providing a network connection to a web browser on your phone will expand the possibilities enormously.
 
Presumably one rationale for the delete loop is that the disk goes read-only while deletion is in progress, such that the delete flag can't be deleted. Then fix-disk makes it deletable and actually deletes it.
 
/df said:
Presumably one rationale for the delete loop is that the disk goes read-only while deletion is in progress, such that the delete flag can't be deleted.
Click to expand...
Or maybe the box just gets stuck in the background process because the deletion never completes, regardless of the flag. I suppose the flag is still relevant to the process continuing after a reboot though.
 
I wonder what the point is of the delete flag really, and why it is persistent across reboots, and what would happen if something in the CF just deleted it on every boot.
The tricky bit I suppose is that you can't delete the flag until the disk has been started by the humaxtv app. and then it 'owns' the file and has probably already read and acted on it.
 
prpr said:
The tricky bit I suppose is that you can't delete the flag until the disk has been started by the humaxtv app. and then it 'owns' the file and has probably already read and acted on it.
Click to expand...
Intercept the 'mount' system call, look for the /mnt/hd1 mount point, perform the actual mount and then delete filebglastop.dat before it returns to the humaxtv app caller.
 
In CF, a script called /mod/etc/mdev/fixdeleteloop?

Parameters action device mountpoint tmpf, where "$1" = "add" and "$2" is the first or only partition of the disk from which the script is running.
 
/df said:
In CF, a script called /mod/etc/mdev/fixdeleteloop?
Click to expand...
Having tested it, the trouble with doing it that way is that it runs asynchronously. There is no guarantee that the file has been deleted before the humaxtv app has read it.
So it looks like a LD_PRELOAD library intercept really is the way to do it.
 
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